Flash Gordon Left Me The Keys

Saturday, June 28, 2003

Henry Hill saunters across Rockefeller Center, eyes hidden by dark sunglasses. He peers at the site of the famous skating rink, conjuring up an image of New York City past.

"Right there," he says wistfully. "My daughter used to skate there all the time."

Hill, the infamous mob informant portrayed by Ray Liotta in the classic film "Goodfellas," has many such scenes that endure almost solely in his memory.

He can summon the fabulous Copacabana, where Sammy Davis Jr. once sent him a bottle of champagne. He can revisit other old mob haunts: the Bamboo Lounge (burned out by an arsonist), Snoope's Bar (where John Gotti made his bones), Robert's Lounge (a dozen bodies buried beneath its bocce court).

All gone -- but not forgotten.

Hill summons up much of his storied past in a new book, "A GoodFella's Guide to New York," a memoir-tourist guide-mob history. It's his second foray into publishing; last October, he released "The Wiseguy Cookbook."

Hill lives across the country now, in a quiet West Coast town of a few hundred people. He's no longer No. 1 on the mob retribution list -- most of his contemporaries are dead or in jail, and the number of Mafia informants is now immense. Still, the Brooklyn native remains disinclined to stay too long in his hometown.

"I miss it," Hill says over coffee and a bagel -- a New York bagel -- one recent Manhattan morning. "Greatest city in the world."

Hill, his gray hair slicked back, wears a beige sweater and a smile that spreads slowly across his wrinkled, 60-year-old mug.

"But you know what?" he says, starting to laugh. "I'd rather breathe."

It's been 24 years since Hill, an associate of the Luchese crime family, opted for the Witness Protection Program over life outside the law. He became a devastating witness, and the best-known informant since Joe Valachi first broke the mob's vow of omerta back in the '60s.

Hill's criminal exploits, detailed in the best-selling book "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi were later turned into Martin Scorsese's 1990 film "GoodFellas."

In his guide, Hill reveals that Scorsese never let him meet with Liotta, his on-screen alter ego. "He didn't want me to influence him whatsoever," writes Hill.

Robert De Niro, in contrast, endlessly quizzed Hill for insights into the character based on Jimmy "The Gent" Burke.

Hill and co-author Bryon Schreckengost provide a tour of the city as filtered through the mobster's memories. "I'm about to show you a New York you've never seen," Hill says in the introduction. "My New York."

This is, of course, a New York that disappeared years ago, much as Hill vanished from the city after turning government witness in 1979.

Before that, Hill was a serious gangster. He was involved in two major criminal endeavors: the 1978 Lufthansa heist that netted $5.8 million, and the Boston College point-shaving scandal a year later. And he dabbled in crimes from hijacking to extortion to drug dealing.

In the book, Hill offers his take on everything from hotels to mob hits, from great restaurants to really bad guys.

-- On the celebrity-owned restaurant Man Ray: "It would be a great place to rob."

-- On Madison Square Garden: "We've run more bets at games that happened here than any other facility in the country."

According to Schreckengost, attorneys for publisher Random House nixed some of Henry's suggestions for the book. "They didn't want to reopen any old cases," he said.

Hill is not so leery of mob retaliation that he's dodging publicity. He did appearances at two West Coast book fairs, and VH-1 did a recent "Where Are They Now?" piece on Hill.

When he went for a walk on this trip to New York, Hill was recognized by three young men -- and he enjoyed the attention.

Coalition troops remain in full force
Large number of soldiers in Iraq accounts for rising number of casualties

Nearly two months after President Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq, an occupying force of 146,000 troops faces an increasing barrage of deadly attacks and no promise of coming home anytime soon.

Although the Defense Department said more than 130,000 mostly Navy and Air Force personnel have been recalled from the Persian Gulf, the ground force now occupying Iraq is nearly as big as it was on April 9, the day Baghdad fell, according to an analysis of units now deployed.

The bulk of the two Army divisions and one Marine division that formed the backbone of the initial assault into Iraq remain there.

A top Army commander conceded this week that continuing unrest on the streets derailed plans to substitute the 3rd Infantry Division -- the first U.S. unit to reach Baghdad -- with the 1st Armored Division.

"That did not happen because the security situation didn't move as quickly in a direction we thought it would toward stability," Lt. Gen. John Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. "We needed the additional forces."

Both units will remain in Iraq for the time being, he said.

So will the 101st Airborne Division, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and 1st Marine Division, all of which also participated in the initial invasion, as well as units that arrived near the end of the attack: the 4th Infantry Division and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

Abizaid, who is expected to win Senate confirmation to replace Gen. Tommy Franks as the leader of the U.S. Central Command, said he is working on plans to rotate at least some of the troops home. He was unable to say, however, how many or how soon.

Although he said he expects relief from as many 30,000 coalition troops, Abizaid said a large number of U.S. forces will remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, it's been a rough week for troops in Iraq.

At least six American soldiers, a U.S. Marine and six British troops have been killed this week in separate attacks in areas ranging from suburban Baghdad to Majar al- Kabir in southern Iraq, a region of the country previously considered more hospitable to coalition forces.

That raises to at least 27 the number of Americans killed in hostile fire since Bush announced the conclusion of major combat on May 1.

After three attacks yesterday killed two U.S. soldiers and injured 10 others, and two other American soldiers were reported seized north of Baghdad, an Army spokesman in Iraq described this week's violence as a "spike" and not a trend.

Military analysts say there are too many variables at work to determine whether that assessment is accurate.

"It's entirely possible it will all go away in a couple of days," said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank in Virginia. "And it's entirely possible you ain't seen nothing yet."

Pike said the sheer number of coalition troops on the ground makes casualties inevitable.

"If you figure how many American troops are over there and figure how many assault weapons are in the hands of young Iraqi men with no air conditioning and no jobs, you can imagine the possibilities," he said.

Defense analysts say attacks on coalition forces will continue until the bulk of Iraqis believe they control their own destiny.

"We don't have a lot of time before things turn really nasty," said Timothy Lomperis, a former Army intelligence officer in Vietnam who served as an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. "This is like Northern Ireland for us right now."

Former Army intelligence officer and author Ralph Peters believes many of the casualties are a direct result of the Pentagon's efforts to use more aggressive patrols to flush out supporters of Saddam Hussein's regime. He believes the escalation in the violence may actually indicate the tide is turning and order is coming.

"It's painful at the moment, getting all the bad guys out," Peters said. "But it's better to pay the butcher up front."

That does not make it any easier for the troops, some of whom deployed for war before Christmas, fought a bitter campaign and now swelter in dusty places where recognizing friend from foe is as difficult as ever.

Capt. Felix Almaguer, a 29-year-old intelligence officer who grew up in Summit, has sent his family e-mails describing how demoralized troops have become each time plans to return home are delayed.

In late April, Almaguer told his cousin, Lori Tarke of Mountainside, that he expected to be home in June. Now, the date he gives is the end of the summer. His latest e- mails described constant tensions in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, where his unit, the 3rd Infantry Division, was recently sent to keep order.

"They just keep wondering when they're going to get relieved," Tarke said. "Because they did such a good job (the Army) made them part of this special task force. I'm wondering what would have happened had they did a bad job."

The United States is struggling to haul in its three most-wanted men -- Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar -- but it is the kind of mission analysts say can leave even a superpower feeling weak.

"Even when you are the world's superpower with all this technology available to you, trying to track down and find one guy and kill him is really hard," Defense analyst Charles Pena of the Cato Institute said on Thursday.

Saddam, Iraq's toppled president, was driven from power by a U.S.-led invasion launched in March, but his whereabouts remain unknown 2-1/2 months after the fall of Baghdad.

Al Qaeda leader bin Laden, who President George W. Bush in 2001 declared was "wanted dead or alive" and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld predicted "we're going to get him," also has eluded capture, and al Qaeda remains an acute threat.

Mullah Omar, who headed Afghanistan's Taliban government that harbored the al Qaeda network blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks, slipped away during a U.S.-led war launched in October 2001 that ousted the Taliban.

"When people don't want to be found, there's a lot of things that they can do to keep from being found," said a defense official at the Pentagon, on condition of anonymity.

"It's frustrating, but it's not surprising that things like this happen," the official added.

With no absolute proof any of these three fugitives are dead, the United States is pressing the search "on a daily basis," the official said. "Just because it's not in the press every day does not mean it's not happening."

Analysts said such a manhunt is a chore for which the U.S. military and intelligence agencies are poorly equipped.

'NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK'
"When you're trying to find individuals in a sea of humanity, if they have any kind of support at all, it really is a 'needle in a haystack' problem," said Mike Vickers, a former U.S. special forces and CIA officer currently an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

"A lot of our intelligence assets are not focused on that kind of a problem," Vickers added, so the search depends on individual agents and the ability to intercept communications.

Vickers said the apprehension of former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega on Jan. 3, 1990, following a U.S. invasion may have made the task seem deceptively easy. Noriega surrendered after taking refuge in the Vatican embassy in Panama City.

Pena said the failure to capture the fugitives is magnified because Bush and others in his administration personalized conflicts with al Qaeda and Iraq into confrontations with bin Laden and Saddam.

"The United States has hyped up and made Saddam into this mythic character now. Saddam was a two-bit thug dictator and that was it. But now he's become this larger-than-life villain. Once you've made him larger than life, you've got to go get him," Pena said.

John Pike, director of the GlobalSecurity.org think tank, said if Saddam and bin Laden remain unaccounted for into the 2004 U.S. election year, "It could become a presidential debating point that this administration lacks the capacity or the will to finish the job, even if it may not be a fair point."

Vickers said bin Laden likely is holed up either in eastern Afghanistan or just across the border in Pakistan, and Mullah Omar probably is hiding in the Afghan provinces of Kandahar or Oruzgan.

U.S. special operations troops have taken a leading role in the search for Saddam in Iraq, and the Pentagon directed air strikes on March 20 and April 7 against Baghdad sites where intelligence indicated Saddam might be present.

"Saddam has so many underground facilities that we have yet to look at, some we may not even know about. And he's got a whole network of people, his close relatives, who are certainly willing to shelter him. And it's just going to take time to find him," the defense official said.

Two soldiers, including a man from New Jersey, have been listed as missing in Iraq, the U.S. Army said Friday.

Sgt. 1st Class Gladimir Philippe, 37, of Linden, N.J., and Pfc. Kevin Ott, 27, of Columbus, Ohio, are members of an artillery unit based in Fort Sill, Okla.

The two soldiers and their Humvee disappeared Wednesday night near Balad, a town north of Baghdad where American troops have searched for supporters of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

They still were missing Friday. Military officials say at least three Iraqis were being questioned about the case.

"We don't know if they were abducted, or they were just killed," said Sgt. Patrick Compton, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.

No one has claimed to have captured the men, Lawrence DiRita, an aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, told reporters at the Pentagon.

Philippe entered the Army in November 1988, and Ott has served since January 2002, said Maj. Steve Stover, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon.

Philippe's father, Renisse Philippe, of Roselle, N.J., said his son called him four weeks ago, but he missed the call. He last saw his son, the eldest of nine children, just before he left for Iraq in December.

Sgt. Philippe is a Gulf War veteran who was not overly concerned about combat in Iraq, the father said.

"That's his job, he's going to do his job," he said.

Renisse Philippe, an American citizen, brought his family to New York from Haiti in 1970, before moving to New Jersey two years later. Sgt. Philippe's mother died several years ago, the father said.

A woman who answered the phone at the Ott home Friday night said the family did not want to comment. "We're under a lot of stress," she said.

Five Army soldiers from New Jersey have died during Operation Iraqi Freedom: U.S. Army Spc. Kyle Griffin, 20, of Emerson; Master Sgt. Terry Hemingway, 39, of Willingboro; Cpl. Michael E. Curtin, 23, of Howell Township; Army Spc. Gil Mercado, 25, a native of Paterson whose family lives in Puerto Rico; and Spc. Narson B. Sullivan, 21, of North Brunswick.